William Park via Talk said on Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:26:56 -0400
Problems with email are - it gets buried very quickly Not if the mailing list has its own folder - you can only read/see one email at a time Not if you open the email as its own window - difficult to scan through and ignore irrelevant emails Not if the mailing list has its own folder - once it's in your Inbox, it's difficult to ignore. It never hits your Inbox if the mailing list has its own folder
The preceding list starts with: "Problems with email are" We're not talking about interactions between lots of users for the benefit of everyone. Email's only role is a handy way of getting everyone together.
Since we already have website, maybe web-based forum, using Drupal or something, could be the answer for "modern" user base.
Forums have been around for 40 years, and somehow never got a majority of attention from technical groups. Perhaps that's because you have to go hunting instead of having posts come to you. As a last subtopic, here's a quote from Barry Fishman while discussing a mailing list: "My biggest problems with some large projects like Gnome, is they spend so much effort on meeting the perceived needs of users that they don't have, they seem to forget the needs of users they already have." To his quote I'd add that it isn't only large projects. Sometimes it seems like *every* group contains some people so invested in attracting the mythical "non technical user", or "granny", or "GenZ user", none of whom is likely to migrate to Linux no matter what hoops we jump through, that those invested people advocate moves that alienate existing group members. Want to replace email based mailing lists? Fine. But do it with something that's an improvement, not a "forum" or a walled garden or something with a 10 page fine print TOS. SteveT Steve Litt http://444domains.com